# The Painting Tale

К Инна

"Историю C Рисованием" перевёл с русского мой сын Вадим.

Story copyright (C) 2007 Inna K.

Illustrations copyright (C) 2007 V. Bulitko


A little girl called Angela really wanted to paint. She tried to draw with a pencil but the drawing looked drab and grey and she did not like it. So Angela asked her parents to get her a set of colorful paints.


Soon her dad brought her a fine-looking box. Inside there were brand new sparkling little paint cans of different colors. Angela really liked all the paints; each can was just waiting to be opened. She decided to use them all and make a different painting with each paint. So on Monday she used a red paint, on Tuesday - an orange, and so on.


On Monday all her paintings were red. There were a red table, red chairs, a red cat named Purry, red plates and cucumbers, red buns and cookies, red socks and a dress and a red hat.


On Tuesday everything turned lighter and was colored orange. The little girl tried to paint other things and she made all the trees behind the window orange. To Angela's delight, the neighbour's dog turned out looking like a little lion. But an orange sun in an orange sky just didn"t show up very well. So she used a pencil to draw a circle in the sky with many rays in all directions.


On Wednesday everything was even lighter. Yellow. She painted a yellow dress and socks, sandals, an umbrella an yellow handbag, anda folding stool.


On Thursday everything changed its color sharply and became green: green house, walls, ceilings and carpets, green doors and green chandeliers. Even a canary in the cage was green. Angela then had to outline all of them with a pencil as nobody could see where the walls and the cage or the canary were.


This green world suddenly turned light blue on Friday. It was very beautiful: blue sky, blue trees and bushes, and blue water. Blue ducks swimming in the blue lake. And there was a blue boat with blue oars, and the little blue painter herself seated next to her blue cat Purry.


But on Saturday her painting came out very dark blue. It looked like a big, dark cloud had cast a shadow on everything. There was a dark blue street with dark blue houses and fences and dark blue street lights. Frightened blue rabbits had their long blue ears clinging to their heads. The neighbour"s dark blue dog Toby stared at the rabbits with surprise in his eyes and did not pay any attention to the girl's neighbour Teresa who was feeding the rabbits with a dark blue carrot.


It was Sunday and Angela was thinking for a long time about the color for the next painting. She couldn't decide whether or not to use the violet paint because then everything would turn much darker and gloomier. Only in the evening she started to paint her little sister and her mommy and daddy. They looked so gloomy in dark violet that the girl stopped painting and went to sleep instead.


In the middle of the night Angela was awakened by the strange sound of soft and tiny voices. She sat up in bed, turned on the light and looked around the room. Everything looked as usual. So the girl got out of bed, walked to the door and listened into the corridor, but all was quiet there. Then she went to her toy box and saw that the toys were fast asleep. She looked at her table top and suddenly realized that the voices were coming from the open paint box.


"I am red paint and should paint only red things: apples, tomatoes, poppies, ash berries, and a red hat on a woodpecker", said the little can of red paint. "I don't like to paint red cucumbers, red cats, and other things that have never been red."


"Well, I am an orange paint and look sunny like daisies, fall leaves, carrots and lions. I object to painting orange dogs!" exclaimed the orange paint can.


"Yellow is such a beautiful color," the third paint said, "but when everything is yellow, people become stressed out. I would not want that. I want to paint the sun, sunflowers, melons, yellow apples and pears."


"Everyone says I am a spring color, the color of fresh, green fields, new grass and Northern Lights. I hate to paint green walls, floors and ceilings!" grumbled the fourth can.


The blue can spoke up: "My light blue color is the color of skies and seas, of blue night stars and of blue pines. But the girl uses me to paint bushes, ducks and even cats!!! If this goes on, I am going to run away!"


The sixth can broke into tears. "I am a nice color! Dark blue is the right color for the night sky, bluebirds, and bluebells, but surely not for rabbits or dogs".


The violet can interrupted with: "I am the color of beautiful violet flowers. I am in the evening shadows, but if someone uses me for everything around, people will feel sad and no one will like me. I will cry bitter tears and flow down off the table and out under the door. Then no one will be able to use me!"


Angela listened to the paints talking and became ashamed of how she had offended them. The next morning she got up and sat down on the porch, looking at the glorious sky, smiled, and painted a beautiful shining rainbow with all of her paints. As she was painting, a soft humming filled the air. It was her paints singing happily. The flowers on the painting seemed to dance in the garden, and the sky smiled from horizon to horizon with a broad, brilliant rainbow.